Atlas of Communism - Book
Atlas of Communism
COLLECTIVE MEMORIES FROM SUCEAVA
This project is a collaboration between me and the citizens of Suceava (a small Romanian city), who shared their knowledge of history and architecture, personal experience, memories and stories. The main purpose of this atlas is to raise new questions, not to recreate history, and to start unexpected conversations between the generations that lived during communism and the ones that never experienced it.
However, in order to bring to the surface complex stories about Suceava, my home town, I chose to represent its weaved layers.
By creating three different visual ways of looking to the city, through maps, illustration, and photography to create a reflective atlas, based on narration and personal stories, I wanted to create an atlas of collective memories from Suceava.
Romania is a post-communist country that keeps its controversial past under its contemporary spaces. To understand the existing city, I needed to engage with it.
In order to find more about the most vulnerable period of the lives of Romanian people, The Communist Era, I started talking with Suceava’s residents.
My project started by simply talking with different people I met on the street, that lived in the communist period. I recorded their voices, I took notes and photographed them.
Furthermore, I accessed archival and legal documents, old maps and archived photography.
The last section of the book is based on people’s real experiences, during the communist period, în Suceava, Romania. I met with each person in different places, in their homes, in parks, at their studios or on the street, and carefully listened to their stories.
Most of the interviewees relived these moments, and shared them in tears, with happiness or sadness.
These illustration series represent a unique timeline, marked by personal memories.
Each illustration captures their touching stories.
